


The Waves

by RideBoldlyRide



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bittersweet, But it’s not detached violence, F/M, It’s not super graphic, Lots of Angst, No “I love you” challenge, Zutara, ZutaraNoILoveYou, i may have gone a different route than most with this challenge?, lots of pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28919904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RideBoldlyRide/pseuds/RideBoldlyRide
Summary: It's in the four words that aren't the four words he means-- it’s in the "I need your help", in the "thank you Ambassador Katara", in the "will you write me?".He thinks, he hopes, he prays that he hears it in the three little words she says that aren't the three he wants to hear-- in the "tell me how", in the "my pleasure, Firelord", in the "of course, Zuko."
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 45
Collections: The No "I Love You" Challenge





	The Waves

It's in the four words that aren't the four words he means-- it’s in the "I need your help", in the "thank you Ambassador Katara", in the "will you write me?".

He thinks, he hopes, he  _ prays _ that he hears it in the three little words she says that aren't the three he wants to hear-- in the "tell me how", in the "my pleasure, Firelord", in the "of course, Zuko." 

Weeks to months to years, and the words stay like cobwebs at the side of his lips, catching all the unspoken moments, growing heavier and more ragged. He reaches the age of maturity. A few years later, Katara does, too. 

This fact hovers over them long one night after many glasses of plum wine, but still his words are jailed behind his teeth. Her eyes glow that night, and he thinks and he hopes, but nothing is said. It’s the last time he sees her look at him that way.

So when his council pushes him to marry, he selects a quiet woman, reserved, beautiful like a porcelain doll. He selects a woman that is everything Katara is not. And he hopes that’s enough to make his words of devotion ring a bit truer, if he doesn’t see Katara in the flick of a wrist or a flash of a smile. 

Not long after, she leaves her post as Ambassador. She leaves… to somewhere. Katara tells him once to where, and his advisors tell him time and again. He tries to stop listening. If he was truly honest, he would admit that he marks her travails in little red X’s on his personal map. Each brush stroke sounds like her name. 

He counts down the days to his wedding. She’s returning for the event—all of their friends are, too. 

It’s the night before, and his blushing bride-to-be has long excused herself to retire, all grace and dignity. He has disregarded all that, his friends just as drunk as he, the only ones left in the small gathering. They are loud, they are warm, they are… foreign now. He hasn’t seen Aang outside of a flutter of orange robes and a passing “hey Sifu Hotman!” in years. Sokka is almost solely in the South Pole learning from his aging father the ways of ruling his people. Toph is… Toph. Probably caught up in some scheme, or testing her limits on sand. Suki is busy watching Sokka and quelling the fires behind him. And Katara…

Katara is gone. 

Somewhere in the haze and laughter, she had left. When he leaves to find her, even in his drunken state, he can still hear his friends grow solemn, their eyes following his retreat.

He finds her at a nearby pond; a favored spot during her time as ambassador. She’s pulling up fistfuls of grass and letting the wind pull them from her upturned hand,

“What’d the grass do?”

Her words are soft, and her eyes follow the motion of the floating grass. “Nothing, I guess.”

He settles down beside her, offering the bottle still clutched in his hand. “What did I do?”

She raises a brow towards him, quizzical, before taking a long swig.

It’s his turn to pick at the grass in silence. “Why did you leave?”

Her blue eyes are sparkling in the dark, her gaze piercing. “Now, you mean?”

“Both times, I guess.” He can’t meet her eyes, so instead he gazes out over the water.

“The same reason.”

He casts her a confused look, and she sighs before continuing.

“You’re getting married.”

“What about it, Katara?”

She grows quiet, and when he takes her in, he’s surprised to see the tears in her eyes. When she speaks, it’s barely a whisper. 

“I hate her.”

His eyes grow wide, frantic, searching her face for understanding. “What do you mean?”

Blue eyes refuse to meet his. “She’s not me.”

“I know she’s different—“

“—that’s not it.”

He stills, but his eyes never cease the exploration of the lines of her face, trying to piece together the parts he’s confused by. He rolls her words around in his mouth.

“She’s... not…. you…  _ oh. _ ”

The realization comes to him like an unexpected wave, catching him at his knees. He splutters, coming up for air

"Katara I didn't know--" he stops, before trying again, "if I had known--"

"It doesn't matter." Her words are clipped, and he feels the waves slap like a hand across his cheek. "Not any more." 

She finds her feet, albeit unsteadily, before taking one last swallow and handing him back the nearly empty bottle. 

"Sleep well, Zuko."

* * *

The sun is oppressive. It presses down on him like a leaden weight, trying to bend his back, bow his shoulders. As always, he straightens under the pressure. After all, he’d been holding himself upright against the waves since the night prior. What was a little heat to the unrelenting waves that threatened to bowl him over with every breath?

Resplendent in gold and red and cream, his soon-to-be wife is the picture of grace, her form exquisite despite the heavy drape of her brocades. 

He blinks, and sees the negative image; blues and silvers accentuating nutmeg skin, a wry smile and the grace of a dancer. Dismissing the thought instantly, he returns back to the moment, to the white and red smeared across the woman’s face. The contrast snares his interest, his eyes transfixed on the soft pout of his betrothed’s lip. It’s why, when a flash of blue and gray and brown moves across his line of sight, it startles him. 

Then the world is silent, oddly so, he thinks, and moving rather the wrong way. It’s almost peaceful, detached, and surprisingly, he’s not too concerned by the shift in his perception. His world has already been turning on its head since the night prior, and it is nice for everyone else to join him.

It isn’t until he feels the air escape his lungs in a pained rush that he realizes that the silence was a lie, the peace an illusion, but that the blossoming agony in his abdomen is very much not.

He gasps for a breath, but now that his feet are out from under him, he’s drowning. Turning to vomit out the seawater he could swear is in his lungs, he sees Katara rise unsteadily. Her body is draped across the Fire Nation noblewoman, as if protecting her. Zuko can’t find the breath to tell her that it was useless. A decorative piece of metal grating pins the sightless woman to the ground as one would a dangerous snake in the garden: between the eyes.

The red on her lips spreads.

Something hollow opens in Zuko’s chest, but it’s quickly followed by another swell of water, and he expels it with force. 

As Katara moves away from her helpless cause, he abstractly wonders at the sight of her crimson gown. He could have sworn she was wearing blue…

She totters to him, and he tries once more to speak, to ask, but the words refuse to come, only replaced by seawater. So, instead, he lets her move him, rolling him to his back. Her hands rest upon his chest and he cries out at the sensation, but it’s quickly dulled under her touch. Slowly, his hearing returns to him.

It’s pandemonium. There are fires uncontrolled, there are bodies--no,  _ parts _ of bodies-- strewn across the once-green grass. But that’s a muted chaos, a distant white noise.

All he hears are the soft, broken sobs coming from the woman hunched over his chest. The glow from the water at her hands highlights her frizzled hair. He raises a hand to soothe it, and she lifts her head at the action. 

It’s the first time he realizes that she has red on her lips as well. He’s not sure he likes it on her. She is meant for moonlight and silver, blue greens and white ice.

“Why are you crying?” His words are cracked and damp, the saltwater rising again. A soft dribble of it escapes his lips. 

She lets the water fall from one of her hands, using her thumb to wipe away the liquid on his chin. He’s surprised when it comes away red. 

Slowly, she settles beside him, and he feels the pain wash away, even though the tide in his chest is relentless. She settles against him, as if it is just the two of them sky gazing upon some quiet hillside. Maybe they are, he thinks. Maybe this is a daydream, and he will turn to her, and she will try something mischievous, something scandalous, something… perfectly Katara. But when he blinks, the world is still on fire.

She’s watching him and only him, even though he can vaguely hear the screams, their names over the crackling flames. A slow trickle of red traces down her forehead, and he reaches for it, to wipe it away. He lets his hand stay there, hand cupping her cheek, and he smiles at her. 

“Why didn’t you say?” Melancholy laces his words.

“Why didn’t you?” She challenges lacklusterly.

His smile falls as she nears him, curling up against his chest. There’s not much strength left in him, but with all that there is, he pulls her closer. 

His vision is fading, the tide now always at the back of his throat, and he coughs out the words.“I’m so sorry, Katara.”

“Me too, Zuko.” Her voice is hardly a whisper. She pauses, turning her face back up to look at him. “Please tell me.”

He pulls her closer, but the words are strangled, and her body is growing limp in his arms. Cloudy-eyed, she studies his expression.

“Until I sleep.”

Zuko nods into her hair. “And you’ll tell me?”

“Until you sleep.”

He feels the waves rise in his body but he lets them crash over him. Just three little words on her lips, and he starts to sink into the depths, but he swallows one more gasp to let escape those four little words, and with it his breath. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ... I did something fun with the dialogue and I’m proud of it. Did you catch it?
> 
> EDIT: I am the worst at remembering doing this, but I really need to get better, because it's the beta that makes these stories shine. SO a special thanks to my beta, formergoldilocks. <3


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